The adventure has taken us to beautiful Bali, Indonesia. Bali is a classic holiday destination, and in recent years has started to be avoided due to it’s overwhelming success. This sadly leads to a cookie cutter, inauthentic touristy experience, however, we are lucky and it is literally the lowest season possible here!
The Balinese are known for their kind charm, and they have been living up to it. I visited 4 years ago for my first real Asian adventure, and vowed to return someday. Well, for most someday never comes but for me someday has arrived.
The trip here was not without its troubles however. Julie and I hit up the HK airport with lots of time to spare. We were scheduled to fly over night through Singapore, getting into Bali 5 am the next day. I had booked a one way ticket, as my departure date was still a mystery. Should be fine. Ergh… nope. When we went to check-in we were informed, no entry to Indonesia without an exit ticket booked. Cripes, ok. No problem, I’ll book some cheapo flight online really quick 30 days later. I focused, and quickly found a 60 dollar flight and had it booked. Back to the counter I went. Nope, no confirmation email. For the first time ever. It didn’t show up. No flight. Ok, whatever, I’ll book another flight. I’m easy. I managed to book another 60 dollar flight on a different site, and low and behold, it came. We were however, now painfully close to the cut off, and had to navigate the giant HK terminal to our gate. But not yet. We had to pay a fee for our bags, equal to about the cost of the ticket, and the credit card took about 10 minutes to go through, fools!
We clipped it to immigration, pushed quickly through security, and with not much time to spare we arrived at our gate after a quick train to another terminal :-/ . Relaxed finally, wait cripes. Nobody is here! Like a skilled amazing race team, we checked the board and saw a gate change. A gate in yet another terminal! We ran to the train, up some escalators, and somehow managed to get to the gate on time. Things had worked against us, but we conquered the airport, and after sleeping pretty much the whole flight, were in Bali as planned :).
As we arrived so early, we had the whole day to ease in, and do as we please. It was Julie’s first visit, so we took a little stroll around to explore, grabbed some breakfast, and roamed the beach. The sun we’d been seeking was blasting hot and we vegged out on the beach for half the day. It was glorious. Not glorious was that in my sleepy state, I failed to fully apply sunscreen to my, at the time, very white carcass. Not sure how many times a white boy can learn this lesson in the course of a lifetime, but I digress. I soaked up the sun indiscriminately, and the sun payed me a similar attitude in return. Later that day I would discover my error to the tune of a very abstract red painting on my back, showcasing both the power of the sun, and the effectiveness of sunscreen! Curses, poor form.
Our early flight and sun bathing had taken its toll so we indulged on my favorite Asian activity. Cheapo massages! No not the happy ending kind, just the normal ones. They run from 5-10 bucks for a quality relaxing hour. It was a wonderful hour indeed. That evening, after some dining and a beer, bed was calling and we answered happily.
Stay tuned for more Bali action.